Winter’s treats

AS always the Dunamaise Arts Centre has a jam packed schedule of events to suit all tastes with theatre, comedy and films to whet peoples’ appetites for the week ahead.

AS always the Dunamaise Arts Centre has a jam packed schedule of events to suit all tastes with theatre, comedy and films to whet peoples’ appetites for the week ahead.

Tonight and tomorrow night, December 4 and 5 sees the centre present ‘Ride On’, from the Nomad Touring Network. A Honda 50 bike run forms the background of a hilarious new play by Leitrim writer Seamus O’Rourke. Five members of the Drumkarren Honda Club are sitting in a run-down shed in Co Cavan, ready to embark on a Honda 50 Bike-ride, awaiting the other twenty club members (seemingly ‘stuck’ in a pub in Killeshandra.

Despite the hum-drum talk of rural communities, local newspapers, local radio, local gossip and the boom that is now a bust, the Drumkarren Honda Club are about to discover that a lot can happen in a shed in Cavan on a wet day with a Honda called Hilda. O’Rourke himself features in this production alongside a stalwart cast of John Olohan (Glenroe, Fr Ted) Pa Ryan (Pure Mule, Trivia, Game of Thrones) Ian Lloyd Anderson (The Clinic) and Clare Monnelly.

On Thursday December 6 three popular ladies will return to the Dunamaise for ‘One Night of Dignity’. Ireland’s top all female comedy singing sensations, The Nualas, are on the road again with their new show. In a world where pop stars think nothing of singing in their underwear, The Nualas buck the trend by sporting proper, yet unbelievably glamorous, and shiny, stage attire. Expect original self-penned numbers, scintillating vocal harmony, ambitious choreography and a night packed solid with craic, laughter, tears, and chat.

Last year The Nualas reformed, launching to great acclaim on The Late Late Show, with their debut song ‘Yummy Mummy Recession Blues’. They went on to storm festivals and venues alike, playing to packed audiences, reaping unanimous critical praise as they went:

During their previous seven years together The Nualas achieved 17 theatre runs including six total sellouts at the Edinburgh Festival, and extended seasons in theatres in London, Dublin and New York and filling The Opera House, Belfast; The Gaiety, Vicar Street and Olympia Theatres, Dublin; The Cork Opera House and The Royal Albert Hall, London.

Film lovers can visit the arts centre this Friday December 7 to see ‘The Giants’. Two teenage brothers and their tag-along friend navigate a summer by themselves in an abandoned country cottage. As they scavenge for food, hunt for pot and pursue harebrained schemes to make money, they find their bravado repeatedly punctured by the rigours of an adult world they cannot comprehend.

The American coming of age story finds itself transplanted to the countryside of Western Europe in The Giants, the latest film from actor-turned-director Bouli Lanners. Shot with a painter’s eye for the lushly wooded Belgian landscape, and filled with Lanners’ bittersweet humour and feel for the rhythms of working class life, The Giants is a funny yet melancholic ode to the idleness, adventures and fears of adolescence.

Tickets for all these shows are available now from the Dunamaise Arts Centre at the box office. Contact 057 86 63355 or visit www.dunamaise.ie for more.

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